Cling to All You Have Left
by tearsofamiko
Summary: It's been two years since she met him on that shuttle, two years since her half-crazed, drunken rant against space and her ex, and she could swear she's seen every possible incarnation of James Kirk. This, however, is a new one.


**Title:** Cling to All You Have Left

**Author:** Tearsofamiko

**Fandom:** Star Trek XI

**Rating:** PG

**Pairing:** (always-a)girl!McCoy/Kirk

**Summary:** It's been two years since she met him on that shuttle, two years since her half-crazed, drunken rant against space and her ex, and she could swear she's seen every possible incarnation of James Kirk. This, however, is a new one.

**Warnings:** genderswap, deals with death of a loved one

**A/N:** So I stumbled across the het_idcrack community on LJ one day and found the most amazing picture prompt, along with the stipulation that it be a girl!McCoy/Kirk fic and _I fell in love_. That being said, this is my first genderswap fic and the most ouchy thing I've ever written, but I had tons of fun. :D And I seriously love genderswap, 'cause I don't _write_ slash, but I _love_ Kirk/McCoy fics.

.:::.

It's after midnight when she finally finishes her shift at the hospital and makes it back to the warmth of her dorm room, commending herself for thinking to leave the lights on low before leaving that morning. It's been crazy at the hospital the past few days, patching up stupid cadets with idiotic New Years plans, and she's exhausted, wanting nothing more than a shower before falling into bed. That thought in mind, she stumbles blearily to the bathroom, deftly avoiding any and all obstacles in the half-lit room.

She emerges thirty minutes later feeling remarkably more human, though fatigue is still dragging at her limbs. She's mildly keyed up from her shower, but figures it'll dissipate easily once she crawls into bed. A little something might help relax her, though, she decides, tossing her towel in the hamper and ordering the lights on full so she can see to fish out the bottle she has stashed in a desk drawer.

Movement out of the corner of her eye has her whirling, adrenaline pounding, hands raised in a defensive posture. She's halfway ready to put her Starfleet-instilled, Kirk-reinforced training to use when she blinks and realizes exactly who's in her room.

"God_dammit_, Jim! What're you tryin' to do, give me a heart attack?" she snaps, dropping her hands to her hips and glaring at her best friend. There's no response and such uncharacteristic silence strikes her as _wrong_, immediately puts her on her guard as she studies him. "Jim?"

It's been two years since she met him on that shuttle, two years since her half-crazed, drunken rant against space and her ex, and she could swear she's seen every possible incarnation of James Kirk.

This, however, is a new one.

He looks strangely diminished, sitting there on her bed, shoulders slumped, hands limp on his knees. His face is completely devoid of emotion, except for his eyes. They're a fever-bright blue, practically glowing, and brimming with tangled emotions. Without a thought, she's tugging a chair across the room, settling in knee-to-knee with him.

"Jim?" she tries again, reaching out and taking his hands in her own. She startles at how cold they are, noticing the vague tremors running through his frame. Feeling more than slightly lost at how miserable he looks, she carefully chafes his hands, trying to warm them. Her voice is gentler than usual as she asks, "What's wrong, kid?"

He licks his lips and draws in a shuddering breath, swaying slightly on the bed. Concern for him is beginning to shift into full-blown worry, both at his strangely depleted physical state and his unusual silence, and she wonders vaguely if she shouldn't see about finding her tricorder. She reaches out a hand, not noticing how it shakes as she places it against his cheek.

"My-" he starts and swallows hard, eyelashes fluttering against her fingertips as he closes his eyes. She feels a twinge of pain at how utterly broken he sounds. "My mom died. Yesterday."

She sucks in a breath, unable to think of anything to say. Jim looks impossibly young as he lifts a hand to knuckle an eye. Unconsciously, she strokes her thumb across his cheekbone, realizing what she's doing only when he turns into her hand just slightly. A faint flush of warmth covers her cheeks as she realizes how intimately caring the action is, but she can't bring herself to stop, soaking up the feel of his skin, grateful for the opportunity to touch him, however brief.

His shoulders shudder once again, more strongly this time, and she leans closer, her knees pressed tight against his, using her proximity as another way to soothe him.

"Message was waiting for me when I got back to my room. Just the official 'Fleet notice, not even anything from Sam." His voice breaks slightly as he says his brother's name and she feels another pang at the obvious hurt in his voice.

"What happened?" she asks, reaching up to place her other hand against his neck, curling her fingers into the soft hair at his nape.

"It was an 'accident,'" he spits, the first show of anything but loss she's yet to see. "There were problems with the pressure lines and a gasket blew. Flooded the section with radiation." He swallows harshly and finally meets her eyes, revealing stark, confused anger and sadness. She wants to cry for him, the urge visceral, and her fingertips dig into his skin slightly; whatever he's about to say is bad.

"She got everyone out but herself."

"Oh, Jimmy." Her voice is a mournful sigh, her eyes sliding shut against the sudden onslaught of tears, and she feels him tremble under her hands.

She wants to pull him into her arms and promise it will be better, to take away his pain, to make it her own so he doesn't hurt anymore. It's her job as a physician, her nature as a healer, to fix what's broken, to soothe and care for. That instinct has defined her life and become a major part of their friendship; whenever Jim is sick or hurting, she's there, to mend and soothe, to cajole him into paying attention or urge him to just let go.

Now, however, there's very little she can do. Winona Kirk, to the best of her knowledge, was several systems away from Earth, Chief Engineer on the _Antares_ as she finishes her most recent mission. And, according to Jim, the accident was yesterday and entirely possibly almost instantly fatal. She sighs, glancing abstractedly at the chrono on the wall, noting the time and, less clearly, the date: _0230, 2257.05._ They take a second to sink in. When they do, she feels like she's been sucker-punched.

"_God_, Jim," she says with feeling. "When did the call come in?" She doesn't do hope very often anymore, not after her daddy died and her marriage to Tate fell apart, but the desperate feeling in the pit of her stomach seems a lot like hope. Maybe – please, _God_ – the call just arrived late and Winona didn't actually—

Jim's eyes are bleak as he just stares at her and hope curdles into resignation. She tugs on his neck to put her forehead against his, the knowledge that he's now lost both of his parents on his birthday resonating within her. He crumbles a little, leaning more heavily against her, head slipping down to hide his face against her neck, and she just loops her arms over his shoulders, holding him close.

The silence filling the room is nearly absolute, broken only by the gentle susurration of their breathing. They stay like that for the longest time but, she realizes, nothing's really changed from when she first noticed him. He's still as closed off and miserable as he was when she keyed up the lights after her shower and she can't – as a doctor, as a friend – leave him like that. Not this time.

"What," she begins, then swallows, unsure what she wants him to say. "What was she like?"

He huffs a shaky laugh against her shoulder, the effort more a warm puff of air against her skin than sound. "She is – _was_..." he trails off and she feels his shoulders tense, feels confusion and doubt pull him wire-tight under her hands, as he searches for words.

"She was...so—_human_." From him, in this context, the word means more than a species, manages to convey every strength and weakness associated with them. "She was _so_ beautiful and—and broken and she tried so _hard_ to keep us from seeing it. She—she tried her best to do right by us. Took us back to Iowa, to the Kirk farmhouse, so we'd be near Dad's family, so we'd know more than holovids and media rumor." His voice is muffled in her shoulder as he speaks and his hands clench into fists against her hips as he tries to explain his mom to her.

"She stayed on Earth when she wanted the stars, learned to raise two kids without my dad, let us know we were safe and loved, that nothing'd ever hurt us." He takes a deep breath, releases it in a warm wash of air across her collarbone, and she grits her teeth to keep from shuddering at the feel of it, hot against her skin under the weight of his body. She closes her eyes and licks her lips, forcing herself to focus on what Jim's saying. "She wasn't a perfect mom, but we had Grandad Kirk nearby if we needed him and she was _there_, at least, to check for monsters under the bed and kiss our scraped knees better. She learned to cook without using a replicator, took a job at the shipyard, and chained herself to the ground, all for us.

"After Grandad died, she had to sell most of the farmland, and take on more work at the 'yard, trying to make ends meet. Eventually, well, it wasn't enough, so her brother came out to Iowa to take care of us and she went back to Starfleet, back to the stars and five-year missions and the places where Dad's memory was strongest. I think... that's when it started."

He falls silent and she thinks she knows what he means, can connect enough dots between what he's said to far and what she knows of his life just before enlisting, but something still tells her that he needs to say it, to acknowledge it for himself.

"When what started, Jim?"

"Me hating her, just a little bit." He sounds tired, wrung out, and she can't stop her hands from stroking up and down his back, barely notices as she starts to feather kisses over his jaw. "For leaving us there, with the rumors that started as soon as she left and the nosy teachers and townspeople and Frank. He was a," his voice breaks as he forces himself to speak and she can feel the hesitation and pain radiating from him, "a good man who wasn't ready to settle down yet, wasn't even married. He resented her leaving us with him."

She knows pieces of the rest of the story, enough that, when Jim doesn't continue immediately, she can guess what happened. She knows about Sam running away, the Corvette and Jim's near miss, vague details about the punishment meted out by a terrified, overwhelmed uncle, and Jim's downward spiral into rebellion and self-destruction. And, yet...

"Jim-"

"I was sixteen the first time I was busted for underage drinking, after a bar fight in a place just outside of town. She came and picked me up, drove me home and put me to bed. I was eighteen when she came to see me in lock-up, stood outside the cell and told me she wasn't there to take me home, that maybe this was what I needed to straighten out. I sat there all night, 'till the sheriff came in the next morning. When I got back to the house...

"I said so many things I didn't mean, Bones, so many hurtful things. That she was a bad mother, that she abandoned us when we needed her, that she loved Dad more than us. And she just sat there, staring at her hands, twisting the wedding band she still wore; she never said anything.

"Not even when I told her I hated her."

She has tears in her eyes at this point, her throat aching with the force of his grief as it rolls off him in waves. She's not prompting him anymore, almost wants to stop him, to turn back the clock and never even consider pursuing this avenue tonight. Trying to help, she fears she's done just the opposite; his voice is reedy, hoarse with pain and emotion, as the words continue to drag out of him.

"She didn't say anything and I-I packed my stuff and left her there, in that empty house, and didn't look back, never looked back, and I never c-called or messaged, never talked to her at all, just left her thinking I hated her and I _didn't_, Bones, I never hated her and I c-can't t-tell her that now, I can't t-tell her how much I loved her and missed her, how much I needed her there all those years, how much I j-just needed to be _enough!_"

Her arms are as tight around him as she can make them, fingers dug into his shirt as she holds on, when he finally breaks. His arms twine around her waist, pulling her in, closer, until she's sitting on his lap, whispering soothing nonsense into his ear, against his jaw, his cheek, anywhere she can reach. And he's crying, hot tears falling to dampen her shirt and harsh, choked, strangled sobs, because he's Jim Kirk and he doesn't cry. Except when he does. And when he does, he's got Lenore there and maybe, _maybe_, that makes it okay.

Over the violence of his grief and her own silent tears, she begins to realize he's still speaking, mumbling brokenly against her shoulder. She holds her breath and tries to listen, one hand absently drifting up to cup the back of his head. Slowly, though garbled by sobs and muffled by her shirt, she figures out what he's saying.

"Why wasn't I ever enough?"

She lets go a wordless little sound of agony as she hears it, wraps both arms high around his back and buries her face against his shoulder, simultaneously trying to hide from and submerge herself in his grief, to avoid it and take it from him, to run and to heal. It hurts so _goddamn_ much to hear him say that, to know he feels that, that she'll do anything, _any_thing to change it.

That's how she explains it to herself later, how she rationalizes away the guilt of taking advantage of Jim in this situation: using physical comfort to ease his grief, something he'd probably have done with a nameless stranger if she hadn't been there. Right now, though, all she knows is she hurts just as much as he does, remembering the pain of losing first one, then the other parent, and realizing that Jim still doesn't know that, to her, he's always been exactly what she needed. He's her best friend and sounding board, her sense of adventure and anchor and, if she's completely honest, she's more than a little in love with him, broken past and fratboy antics and everything. She's _never_ wanted for _anything_ when it comes to him.

Her lips find his jaw again, this time with purpose, catching slightly on the stubbled curve as she presses kiss after kiss against his skin. She shifts slightly in his arms, draws back a little as he freezes under her, trying to gain access to more of his face, to more of _him_. She wants to make him forget, to make him believe, and as he finally turns to meet her lips, she tries her level best to do so.

Time stretches and contracts, and she doesn't know how long this goes on, doesn't remember exactly who needed it most, but she'll take what she can get and give as much as she can. There's a wonderful sort of breathless desperation to it, from the warm, insistent, knowing press of Jim's lips against hers, to the strangely familiar taste of him, all wrapped in warmth and softness and the strength of his arms around her. She forgets everything but him, right now in this moment, until she happens to trail a hand softly over the top of his head and feels him shudder above her. It's not passion in his response, not desire or restrained need that shook him, and it distracts her, pulls her out of the spell woven by the warmth of his body and the taste of his kiss.

"Jim," she murmurs between kisses, trying to catch his attention without spoiling the warm, comforting mood. "Jimmy, Jim-" she sighs as he kisses down the column of her neck, nuzzling the hollow between her collarbones. "Jim, listen to me, we – _ah_." Her voice hitches as he laves a stripe back up her neck, ending in a kiss just below her ear that has her arching up into him. "_Jim_."

Something about her voice finally seems to get through to him and he sighs, deflating a little as he hides his face in her shoulder. She lets him as she tries to catch her breath, cards her fingers through his hair as his body goes lax around hers. Without raising her head off the mattress, she can tell it's an awkward position they're in – half on and under each other, her legs thrown over his, her back against the bed, his face buried in her left shoulder – but it's comfortable and comforting and she's not in any hurry to move. She starts to think he's fallen asleep and the idea that he trusts her enough for this, to come to her when it's a hurt she can't put her finger on, brings the burn of tears to her eyes again and she wraps her arms around his head, cradling him against her chest. And, yet, she still gets the feeling that, despite all that he'd let go of, Jim's still curled tight around old wounds, that there are things festering and aching deep within him, and it nags at her, pushes her to keep pushing him.

"Oh, Jim," she whispers into the quiet of her room, the knowledge that he's likely asleep giving her the courage to say the words aloud, "how could you_-_"

"Not right now, Bones," he mumbles against her, the words hot through her t-shirt as his right arm tightens around her middle, dragging her closer to him.

She nods and, though he couldn't have seen it with the way he's wrapped himself around her, all of the tension drains out of him. His breathing slowly evens out into slumber, though his grip around her hasn't loosened at all, and it damn-near breaks her heart that this beautiful, broken man holds her closest to him, in all the ways that really count. A stray tear slips loose to trail down her temple and into her hair and her hands tighten reflexively on his shoulders, and she wonders how she got this lucky, to have even this much. 'Cause even this much was, really, more than she'd ever hoped for.

"Can't you see you _are_ enough, Jim?" she whispers to the ceiling, eyes burning with emotion and exhaustion.

She commands the lights off with a sigh and darkness folds in close around them, turning the world into an illusion for the few hours left before dawn.


End file.
